Much still to learn from Southern Ocean

Dr Rintoul said the ocean was an important part of the climate system.

"As the Earth has warmed over the last 50 years, more than 93 per cent of the extra heat that has been stored by the planet has been stored in the oceans," Dr Rintoul said.

"Seven of the warmest years on record have happened in the last 10 years.

"What our voyage will do is show how the Southern Ocean is responding to these changes in climate, but also how the Southern Ocean will in turn feed back on climate and drive further change in the future."

During the Investigator's journey, an international team of scientists from agencies including the CSIRO, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research, and the University of Utah, will also conduct experiments to explore the interaction between aerosols and clouds.

Bureau of Meteorology project leader Alain Protat said that the experiments would use a combination of aircraft, ship-based and satellite observations to collect data on clouds and the interactions between incoming radiation, aerosol production, and the formation of precipitation.

"The Southern Ocean region is the cloudiest place on Earth, yet we don't understand why these clouds are different from clouds in other regions," Dr Protat said.

"The lack of pollution over this remote region is a possible explanation, which we will explore with these unprecedented observations."

He said researchers know from reference satellite observations that global climate models struggle to represent the energy balance at the Earth's surface over the Southern Ocean region.

What that means for the accuracy of future climate predictions is largely unknown.

"The complexity of the problem requires collocated, state-of-the art measurements of aerosol, clouds, precipitation and radiation to understand the interactions and feedbacks between them," Dr Protat said.